The case for using a camera instead of your phone

In this post (and a series of follow-up posts!), I’m going to explain the limitations of smart phone cameras and why you might want to invest in a standalone camera.

What’s in a camera?

As I began this piece, I realized that some of my audience might need and want a refresher on the key components of a camera. These assemblies are small on a smartphone, but they exist and are just as important as on a standalone camera.

Any digital camera system on the market today (including your phone) contains the following subsystems:

Lens

Sensor

Viewfinder or live preview screen

An assortment of controls and menus

Wired and/or wireless connection options

Battery

Storage

To compare your smartphone camera to a traditional camera, we need to look at each of these components in turn.

Budget and Photography Style

Please don’t read this article assuming that I know anything about your needs as a photographer. That’s only for you to decide.

The key parameters of any decision to invest in a camera system are

What’s your budget, including accessories?

What kind of pictures do you take?

What do you want to do with the pictures you do take?

Regardless of your answers to these 3 questions, I think the next series of posts will be useful.

Camera Types

As you begin investigating traditional cameras, you will run across category names that define budget and feature combinations.

Point and Shoot: Usually the least expensive category of camera, these are designed for simplicity and portability – much like your smart phone! This market segment suffers the most from phone camera competition.

Bridge: This is a higher end amateur camera with a very flexible zoom lens, built into the camera, and better controls and image quality than a point-and-shoot. Also more expensive and bulky than a point-and-shoot.

Interchangeable Lens Camera: This includes DSRs and mirrorless cameras, with top of the line sensors, and the ability to connect a variety of professional quality lenses to the body. Generally the most capable, extensible and flexible option. But the most expensive and bulky as well.

We’ll continue this series of posts next time with a comparison of lenses in a smartphone versus a standalone camera.

Reason 1 : Availability

There is a saying among photographers: “The best camera is the one you have with you”. In other words, having any camera with you when a shot presents itself is preferable to having no camera. Years ago, this meant “Remember to grab your camera when you leave the house”.

In the age of the smartphone, this is now a no-brainer. Nearly all of us have a camera with us 24/7. And with time, more and more photos come from smart phones. This is a good thing for getting people interested in photography, and for the supply of quality images.

Because of its functionality and slim form factor, this is now the camera we always have with us. That’s a big deal.

Reason 2 : Sharing

Most people want to share their photos in some way. For the vast majority of us, this means social media and email.

Shooting with a camera, for the most part, means that there are extra steps to get our photos where we want them to go. We have to plug the camera in to our computer or eject a storage card, upload pictures to a hard drive, and then share them to Facebook, Instagram, or any of the other multitude of social media sites in your electronic universe.

In your smartphone, immediately after taking the picture, and assuming you have a data connection, you can click a couple buttons and the image is immediately posted.

Cameras just can’t connect to the outside world like your phone, unless you lug along some other gear or purchase an expensive Wi-fi adapter.

Reason 3 : Convenience

A camera won’t be used if it intimidates the person behind the lens. Smartphone cameras are the ultimate point-and-shoots. You just can’t beat the ease of seeing what you’re going to capture in that big, high resolution screen, and capturing the exact image with the press of a single button. There are point-and-shoot camera this easy to use, but they frequently don’t have the same high quality screen.

The combination of rich preview and ease of use makes your phone a clear winner.

Reason 4: Simple, Free Editing

More sophisticated phone photographers realize that the image that comes out of the camera can usually be improved with a few editing tweaks. The great news for those who want to touch up their shots is that the apps on your camera are either free or cheap, and can apply many great effects in a few steps.

Desktop image editors are fantastic, but let’s face it – they have a steep learning curve, and most (but not all) cost a fair amount of money to purchase.

There are a number of great apps for editing photos on your phone. Some of my favorites are Snapseed ( Android and IOS), Photoshop Express (Android and IOS). If you’re an Instagram user, you can edit your photos before posting them.

Conclusion: Stay Tuned

The usage of smartphones as cameras has carved out an impressive usability case for folks who want to make and share images with a minimum of fuss and expense (except of course, for the phone!). Portraits, landscapes, and street photography are accommodated very well with just your camera and a minimum of equipment.

It’s clear why the smartphone market has cannibalized the lower end of the digital camera market, for the above reasons.

In Part Two, I’ll make the case for where you’ll run into dead ends with your phone and why you might want to buy a bridge or interchangeable lens camera system.